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Today I’m proud to announce a new product brought to market with help from our community. It’s the X-Carve Dust Control System, a full dust collection solution for our X-Carve 3D carving machine.

The X-Carve Dust Control System is designed to collect dust as the machine carves your work piece. It features a dust shoe that attaches to the spindle mount. A grounded hose connects to the dust shoe and routes the work dust into your vacuum or dust collector.

In March 2016 we backed a Kickstarter for the Suckit. At the time, we had been working on dust collection ideas for several years, all featuring at least two design elements: independent Z and a magnetic attachment. We were inspired by the reaction to the Suckit, and actively recommended it to our customers. Looking for a way to include dust collection as an option from Inventables, we reached out to Mark at Suckit to learn more.

Mark sent us an early prototype unit and we put it through some testing in our lab. We challenged ourselves to build upon Suckit’s great start by working through some potential performance and manufacturing improvements. We’ve since teamed up with the Suckit crew on this next iteration, the Dust Control System. In addition to collaborating with Mark on its development, we’re paying him a royalty as a thank you for advancing the X-Carve in the community.

We’re excited about the product’s features. First, it assembles onto the X-Carve with no rework or disassembly. This means you can get started right away. If you need to remove it for any reason, you can detach it in seconds without any tools. We’ve made it quite easy to adjust, and included a scale on the side for gauging its height from your work piece.

In addition to the “shoe,” the part that sits below the spindle, it includes a grounded hose and routing system for clean hose management. Grounding is important because it dissipates static electricity that, in certain situations, can ignite combustible materials moving in or out of vacuums. A grounded system dramatically reduces if not eliminates this risk. The hose Inventables provides is grounded and long enough that you don’t need an additional hose, and its universal fitting is compatible with most shop vacuums. Ideally you should have a grounded vacuum, and we have a static strap to ensure the hose finds a good ground.

Finally, the X-Carve Dust Control System includes an alternate Z-probe connector mounting point, because the existing one will be covered as the result of installation.

At Inventables we’re dedicated to building a community of encouragement. The community has and will continue to produce amazing ideas, many that are well beyond what we do inside our own walls. We want to thank Mark and his team for helping bring this into the X-Carve world.